inactive email subscribers: best practices for re-engagement

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Inactive Email Subscribers Best Practices for Re-engagement

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Today’s Presenters

David Fowler @oregonlimey

Chief Privacy & Deliverability Officer

Act-On Software

Craig Swerdloff @swerd

CEO

LeadSpend

www.act-on.com | @ActOnSoftware | #ActOnSW

Email is the heart of your online identity….and its the gateway to your

digital experience…

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Deliverability basics

Email reputation and you

Inactive email subscribers – what you can do

Email conversion formula

Wrap up and Q&A

Today’s Agenda

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What is Deliverability?

Delivered vs. Deliverability Delivered – number of messages that did NOT

bounce

# Delivered – # Messages Sent – # Bounces

IPR (Inbox Placement Rate) - Proportion of messages that make it straight into the inbox

Getting filtered or blocked by the receivers REDUCES your conversions

Ignoring deliverability issues will make them worse

Great deliverability is your foundation to better ROI

Key Point – great deliverability is your foundation to better ROI

EEC Definition of Delivered “…’accepted number’ of messages that make it directly into a recipient’s inbox…”

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Email Reputation

The issues that affect YOUR sending reputation:

Authentication adoption

Email volume

Complaint and hard bounce rates

Spam trap metrics

Blacklist inclusion and management

First and third party content

Domain reputation

Consumer engagement (inactive subscribers)

@leadspend

Email CPR:

How to Define, Identify, and

Resuscitate Inactive Subscribers

Today’s Agenda

• Why inactive subscribers matter

• How to define “inactive” subscribers

• Strategies for keeping subscribers engaged

• Reactivation strategies and termination

• Bonus: A framework for defining “inactive”

subscribers for your company

@leadspend

How ISPs Look at it

@leadspend

Why Care About Inactive Subscribers?

@leadspend

Deliverability – Inactive subscribers hurt engagement rates

– Low engagement rates hurt Inbox Placement Rate

– Over time, ISPs reclaim accounts

– Recycle them or convert them into spam traps

Low Risk

2013 2012 2011 2010 2009

Deliverability Risk

Med Risk High Risk Critical Risk Low Risk

Why are Inactive Subscribers Important?

@leadspend

• Median ROI for customer emails was $28.50 per dollar spent

• Compared to mean customer acquisition cost

of $55.24

Source: eMarketer "Email Marketing Benchmarks: Key Data, Trends and Metrics" (2013)

Calculating the Opportunity Cost of Inactives

@leadspend

Actives Inactives

# of Subscribers 30,000 90,000

Avg. Revenue Per Email

Delivered $0.10

5 x Week X 52 Weeks = 260

Emails

Potential Lost Revenue $2.34M

Defining Inactive Subscribers

@leadspend

How Active are Your Email Subscribers?

@leadspend

Q: What is an inactive or un-engaged

subscriber?

A: Subscribers who no longer read your email, but haven’t yet taken action to stop receiving it.

This can mean something different for each sender.

The ISPs’ Perspective

@leadspend

A Broader Perspective

@leadspend

Defining an Inactive/Unengaged User

@leadspend

Before removing an inactive subscriber check if:

No Opens/Clicks

(90-365 days)

No Purchases

(in ~6 months)

Inbox

Placement Rate

(sender reputation)

struggling

• If all three criteria are true, then start to eliminate

• Remove inactives that have been unresponsive the longest first

Why Do People Become Inactive?

@leadspend

Engaged Subscribers

@leadspend

% Retail subscribers Opened/clicked in the last 3 months

Inactive Subscribers

@leadspend

% Email subscribers Are inactive

Source: MarketingSherpa report

UP TO

Why Did Subscribers Go Inactive?

@leadspend

NOT ENOUGH EMAILS, SEND

MORE!

TOO MANY EMAILS, SEND

LESS!

Frequency of Mailing • You email too often, and they’ve become used to deleting your mail

• You mail too infrequently, and are not engaging!

• Communication: find out how often they want to hear from you

» Preferences and surveys

• Some individuals were never active in the first place

The Mobility Factor

@leadspend

% Email marketers Not designing for mobile devices

Source: MarketingSherpa 2013 Email Marketing Benchmark Report

The Mobility Factor

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% Average user base Emails on a mobile device

The Mobility Factor

@leadspend

Consumers Delete emails on mobile if it doesn’t look good

%

Avoiding Future Inactive Subscribers

@leadspend

Find the cause(s):

– Source

– Permission

– Welcome program

– Messaging

Maintaining a Healthy List

@leadspend

Source: MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Benchmark Report 2012

Reactivation Campaigns

@leadspend

• AKA: Win-back/Re-engagement/Re-activation

– All mean essentially the same thing: we want you back!

– Represent one of the highest ROI opportunities in marketing • Low cost, potentially high reward

• Average Reactivation rate for most marketers: 1-2%

• Potential Reactivation rate for High Performers: 10%+

Winback Program: Overview

@leadspend

Email Validation

We Miss You email

Welcome Back!

Wait X Days

Inactive Group

Very Inactive

Opened/Clicked

We Miss You 2 email

Wait X Days

Final Notice email

Re-Engagement Tactics: Apply Learnings

@leadspend

•Integrate engaged group into core cadence

•Measure creative performance, optimize accordingly

•Integrate triggered re-engagement email at 6-month mark

Engaging Subject Lines

• We miss you and we want you to see what’s new – Appeals without forcing you to offer incentives for their inactivity.

• We have a confession…and an offer you won’t want to miss – Apologize for not reaching out to them in a while, give special attention.

– Limited time incentives.

• We hate spam, too. Let us know if you want to stay on our list. – People don’t want to go through the trouble of unsubscribing, so being

blunt can be effective.

– Straightforward, and gets to the point.

– Let them know that if they do not opt-in by a certain date, they will be removed.

– Keep your word! Actually remove them if you do not receive an answer.

@leadspend

Re-Engage With Special Offers

@leadspend

Option 1: Re-Engagement Test – With a special offer Week 1: We miss you – come back with this special offer! Week 2: Confirm your email and receive 15% off your next purchase! Week 3: It’s not too late – confirm your email to receive 15% off your next purchase Week 4: Farewell from Company XX, we’ll miss you…

Re-Engage Without a Special Offer

@leadspend

Option 2: Traditional – no special offers

• Week 1: We miss you – confirm your subscription

• Week 2: Confirm your email to continue to receive our best deals!

• Week 3: It’s not too late – confirm your email today

• Week 4: Farewell from Company XX, we’ll miss you…

Repermissioning Creative

@leadspend

Example: Four-Part Email Series

@leadspend

Best-in-Class Re-Engagement Tactics

@leadspend

Sephora

Deployed to subscribers who sign-up but do not make a purchase after 45 or 90 days:

We miss you

Aggressive offer

West Elm

Subject Line: We know you’re busy…

Unconventional subject line and creative treatment

Aggressive Offer

L.L. Bean:

Push to preference center

Offers other methods of communication

Smarter Dining:

Survey

Crate and Barrel:

Multichannel

Limited Time

Banner Reconfirmation to Utilize Winning Creative

@leadspend

Using current promotional

emails, add a banner on

the top

Subject: We Miss You,

Please Confirm Your

Email Subscription to The

Children’s Place!

Redbox: Four-Part Series to Inactives

@leadspend

• Highlight benefits users will miss

• Uses same creative but different subject for each touch

• Touch 1: Don't Miss Out on Redbox Offers!

• Touch 2: Don't let any great deals slip by! Confirm your email!

• Touch 3: Confirm your email - Don't lose out on great deals!

• Touch 4: We Want You Back - Confirm Your Subscription Now!

When All Else Fails, Ask Permission

@leadspend

Options Outside of Email

@leadspend

Do you have other information on your users?

The Last Resort: Breaking-Up

@leadspend

@leadspend

BONUS!

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Special Offer for Act-On Customers

leadspend.com/acton

www.act-on.com | @ActOnSoftware | #ActOnSW

Email Conversion Formula

Relevant

Content

Best

Practices

Sale

or Action

Marketing Automation Email Done Right

Data

Segmentation

& Targeting

The

Right

Message

The

Right

People +

The

Right

Time

Conversion

Success = +

www.act-on.com | @ActOnSoftware | #ActOnSW

Q&A

David Fowler @oregonlimey

Chief Privacy & Deliverability Officer

Act-On Software

Craig Swerdloff @swerd

CEO

LeadSpend

www.act-on.com | @ActOnSoftware | #ActOnSW

Ready to Learn More?

Interested in a demo Call +1 (877) 530-1555 Email sales@act-on.com Web www.act-on.com